Sports wear designer pledges to donate profits to youth group
Angel Lopez, an up and coming sports apparel designer, has never forgotten where he came from and the people who helped him along the way.
Lopez, whose new company, Novato Sports Apparel, designs and manufactures apparel for basketball, baseball, football, and soccer teams, has pledged to donate a percentage of his profits to a Sunset Park-based organization that helps at-risk youth turn their lives around.
Lopez said the organization Opportunities For A Better Tomorrow (OBT) helped him several years ago when he was a teenager with no direction. “They helped me big time,” he told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “OBT is the foundation for the business world for me.”
Founded in 1983 by Sister Mary Franciscus, a Catholic nun who lived in Sunset Park, OBT provides classes for high-school dropouts seeking GED diplomas, college prep courses, internships with businesses, public speaking lessons, job interview tips, and other types of assistance to young people eager to get their lives back on track. Randolph Peers, OBT’s executive director, said Franciscus was worried at the time that young people in the neighborhood were throwing their lives away by joining violent street gangs. “We continue her legacy here 30 years later,” Peers said. Franciscus died in 2005. Her picture is still on the wall in the main office.